eobversion1 wrote:Do you think Trump knows just how much of a racist he is? Or is he too stupid to know that, which is arguably worse.

That goes back to what I was saying about Ken Ham. Trump is either a great pretender or a sincere, borderline insane racist.

eobversion1 wrote:Your take on Hillary Clinton as the democratic nominee?

Decidedly the lesser of two evils. The more I hear about Hilary's values and opinions, the more I peg her as the equivalent of a Canadian Progressive Conservative. Not quite as right winged as the Federal Conservative Party, but centre-right, like the provincial PC's are pretty much across the country. She's got a sketchy history coming into this, but the American people aren't ready to Fell the Bern for a democrat who would be most at home in the Canadian Liberal Party (Justin Trudeau's party). So, they picked Hillary and Trump is the saying "It could always be worse" come to life. So yeah, Hillary for nominee, let's roll with that.

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Do you think my technical critiques of GOT episodes are overly critical?

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To clarify it's not that I think that GOT is a poorly made show, not at all, it's that when I am impressed by some of it's craft I'm often let down by other scenes in the episode that involve on over-reliance on coverage or are stitched together by too many cuts from indecisive editors unsure of the correct angle. Overall, I'd just like a little more storyboarding and better shot composition. I don't want it to be fancy schmancy or artsy fartsy for the sake of it, I just think it has more room to be less rough around the edges. As for where the show is going I'd really have to look back on it once it's all over to give a final judgement. It always seems so up in the air to me.

Your take on the U.S. failure to pass even the most basic gun safety legislation?

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Personally, I think it sinks the Republicans even lower than they already are. They're truly immoral. The corruption of their Senators at the hands of the NRA is disgraceful. To entertain the thought of......"yeah the government might suspect you of being a terrorist and with good reason but I'll be damned if that doesn't prevent you front getting a gun" is reprehensible.

Also, Paul Ryan, fuck that guy, he's after censoring the Democratic sit in at the House of Representative. He'd rather be seen as a censor have him look bad. The latest in a stretch of black eyes for him even after he said that his party's nominee for President "the textbook definition of a racist comment" book ended that train of thought with hey, but still better than Hillary Clinton right. Just kind of shows you that state of mind to Republicans textbook racism is better than political opposition. I hope the U.S. Electorate makes them suffer for these kind of gross, morally repugnant inadequacies. An out and out disgrace.

Quite disappointing, but entirely unsurprising. The same Republicans that will spend trillions upon trillions to send troops to fight terrorists overseas and rave over the ever looming threat of terrorism are the same Republicans that can't be bothered to take guns out of the hands of terrorists already living on their own soil. They've proven to me that they care about neither combating terrorism or civilian lives. They care about money. End of story. The NRA is funding them and things are going to stay exactly as they are unless both the senate and congress are turned to a Democratic majority at the next chance.

Paul Ryan is the poster child for that very pandemic greed. Ol' dead eyes has no concerns other than money and ensuring the Republicans maintain control and he's demonstrated that very thing. He would burn the country to the ground if it meant that the Republicans could be the rulers of the ashes.

As of April 1st, 2016,the first entry in my Gold & Steel fantasy series, As Fierce as Steel, is on sale. Visit www.thegoldandsteelsaga.com for more!

One of the best pieces of dialogue in Game of Thrones. The ladder, is the great game itself. Varys subscribes to a worldview that has some semblance of order, in this case that order is derived via the monarchical rule of the Targaryen family. (Especially so in the books) He is a well-intentioned man and makes moral sacrifices for the good of restoring what he feels is the proper order of things, lest everything devolve into chaos. Such as what happens when an unfit ruler like Ramsay Bolton or Cersei are given leave to rule.

Petyr, on the other hand, doesn't see it that way. His worldview is that there is no ultimate order of things. Rather, it's a constant climb to the top of the ladder of power and a battle for the person on top to retain their rung. To him there's no sure thing like order, merely a person fighting off those who would upset their standing at the top. There are the Ned's of the world, who refuse to play and are quickly cast aside, the Petyr's and Tyrion's, who are quite eager to climb and are adept at it, the Roose's and Renly's, who want to climb and try their hand but ultimately fall off when challenged by better climbers or are shoved off unexpectedly by sneakier climbers and there are the Robert's and Ramsay's, who can bull their way to the top by sheer strength and/or brutality, but have a tenuous grasp on the ladder at best. Either way, whether you climb or not, in Petyr's view of things, there is only that ladder, nothing else matters.

As of April 1st, 2016,the first entry in my Gold & Steel fantasy series, As Fierce as Steel, is on sale. Visit www.thegoldandsteelsaga.com for more!

It's oppressive and unhealthily illegal here. We're having a debate about it at the moment and it's descended into a complete farce. The Pro-Life crowd are totally making shit up, anti-intellectual, wrongheaded, can't accept that the weight of evidence is firmly against them, using sketchy anecdotal evidence and totally going off point altogether (like Republicans pretty much) and the Pro-Choice crowd are saying that a woman should be allowed to have an abortion up until the point of birth which as much as I'd like to vote for it that particular point would be a deal-breaker for me. It's one of the last remnants of a time when our society was oppressed by the dogma of the Catholic Church, and what a dogma it was.

It's the woman's choice. Of course there's a point-of-no-return when the fetus starts brain development, but up to that point, it's the choice of the woman carrying the fetus to decide if she wants it or not.

As for the two sides of the fight, from your synopsis of events it sounds like both are engaging in absurdities and while the anti-abortion crowd seem right on track with their North American counterparts, the pro-choice crowd are taking things just too far. There are select, extreme cases where the life of the mother is in direct jeopardy and a late term abortion may have to take place as a last and final resort, but to say that standard-case abortion should be allowed right up until the moment of birth is horrifying.

As of April 1st, 2016,the first entry in my Gold & Steel fantasy series, As Fierce as Steel, is on sale. Visit www.thegoldandsteelsaga.com for more!

As a Canadian, what's your view of how Justin Trudeau has governed? Clearly, you much prefer him to Stephen Harper but I've seen lukewarm reactions to him online and with his approval ratings. As someone with only passing familiarity with him, I see he clearly has all the traits of a decent man with strong principles and values so I ask why the tepid response from some?

I myself am having some reservations with how Trudeau has been handling things lately here in Canada. He made a lot of promises during his campaign and in the year+ since he took power he's been slowly backing away from or breaking many of those promises.

The major backlash with many voters, myself included, he promised electoral reform and issued a statement lately backing down from that promise entirely. This one seems to be rippling much harder through the left wing leaning side than the right wing, as his promises were to do away with the first-past-the-post system in favour of proportional representation.

The Conservative Party will prod him on this going forward as a broken promise, but they didn't raise much of a whimper when it was still on the table because it practically doomed them to never being in power again. Outside of the prairie province stronghold of voters, the Conservatives are just too regressive for the majority of Canadians and against the combined support shared between the Librals, New Democrats, Greens and Bloc Quebecois, which are all left leaning parties, the Conservatives could never hope for more than Official Opposition status under this model.

Trudeau claims the reason for his backing off on the promise is because in extensive polling, Canadians seemed lukewarm on the idea at best and he just didn't think it had the support needed. Not many are buying that claim and the common thread is that since Trudeau won an unprecedented super majority, going to a proportional representation system would reduce his government to a small majority at best, and more likely, to a minority government. With that said, barring the rise of an NDP leader that inspires voters like Jack Layton did, the Librals would rule in at least a minority virtually in perpetuity.

Another issue that left-wing leaning voters with environmental concerns are having is Trudeau's willingness to go ahead with the Dakota pipeline.

He's also made a series of blunders that people are rolling their eyes at on both sides of the coin. The most major of those being an expensive vacation to the Caribbean and a helicopter ride and stay on a millionaire's private island, which is being investigated for possible violations of ethics rulings; and most recently, answering questions asked in English in French during a town hall meeting in Quebec (a primarily French speaking province).

With that said, much of his backlash is from Conservative voters, who were against him the moment he won anyway, regardless of what he does or doesn't do while in power. They are the voters he would never be able to please short of abdicating power to the Conservatives.

In short, he's not quite lived up to the expectations that he himself set. He's not a bad leader by any stretch, and he would have my vote again if we were to vote tomorrow, but he's got to do better than this.

As of April 1st, 2016,the first entry in my Gold & Steel fantasy series, As Fierce as Steel, is on sale. Visit www.thegoldandsteelsaga.com for more!

I noticed Morgan was now on Netflix and given that Rose Leslie is in it, I decided to check it out. It was just okay. It had a solid cast and Rose was amazing as always (even if her American accent, while improved from previous attempts, still slipped on a few words and her British/Scottish accent came through), but I felt the "twist" became obvious as soon as Kate Mara's character met the Morgan character. I felt like the final act was meant to be fast-paced and tense, but it just came off as just rushed. The ending came off as one big trolling effort and left me frustrated with the whole ordeal. The cast are the only thing salvaging this movie from the purgatory of movie mediocrity. I'd give it a passing grade for them alone.

As of April 1st, 2016,the first entry in my Gold & Steel fantasy series, As Fierce as Steel, is on sale. Visit www.thegoldandsteelsaga.com for more!